


Have and Hold

by Sixthlight



Series: Mostly Ceremonial [7]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Discussion of Consent Issues, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, cameos from Beverley Walid and Molly, oh my god those tags make it sound really depressing, this is JUST AS FLUFFY AS THE REST OF THIS SERIES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8230054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: When Thomas had told Peter he’d never really thought about getting married, he’d meant it.





	

When Thomas had told Peter he’d never really thought about getting married, back on that excessively strange day, he’d meant it. He didn’t have any particular illusions about the nature of marriage. It could mean any number of things, depending upon the persons involved in it. When he’d been of an age to seriously consider it, it had quite naturally meant marriage to a woman. That would have been some sort of half-truth, at best, from the outset. Not a way he’d prefer to live his life.

Fortunately, it wasn’t that uncommon to remain single, in the Folly – magic was a very demanding mistress, after all – so it had never caused him to stand out. After all, marriage was an oath, and oaths were a little more binding, where wizards were concerned, than they were for everybody else. So not the sort of thing you entered into lightly, or not that anybody _should_ , but of course they did. He’d been told once by an aunt, on the occasion of his next-oldest brother’s wedding, that he “didn’t seem cut out for marriage”, which had been rather a relief. She’d been the type who would have, if she’d decided he _was_ cut out for it, set about arranging it. He’d have had to find some long assignment to Burma, or perhaps the South Pacific, until she’d forgotten about it.

He had wondered occasionally, when such things became more and more possible, if he would have married David, had that been something they could have done. He thought it probable he would have; he could have meant it, all those words; but it hadn’t been, and it didn’t do any good, the what-ifs. He’d given up more than a year to them, just after the war, _what if_ they’d bombed Ettersberg as he’d argued for, _what if_ he’d realized how badly David had taken it, _what if_ a few more of his colleagues had kept up the art, _what if._ A cornucopia of possibilities, all equally profitless to consider.

In any case, he’d never at any point envisioned having to get married as a defensive measure. When Tyburn had raised the topic, he hoped the panic he’d felt hadn’t shown on his face, because she hadn’t been wrong. The risk had still seemed preferable to binding himself to someone that way and _not_ meaning it, and besides he couldn’t think of any suitable candidates. When Peter had opened his mouth to speak, Thomas had felt a rush of relief, because of course Peter would have a better idea. That was what he was so good at, after all; looking at a situation and turning it over so some unexpected solution emerged into view, something that took the timeless rules and requirements of the world they lived in and made something new of them. Peter would have thought of something.

“Well, I didn’t have any other plans today,” Peter had said, and Thomas hadn’t really processed what he’d said, what he’d meant, until Tyburn had said “That should simplify things considerably.” Then there’d been the arguing and he’d ended up ordering Peter directly to let it go, until Peter had looked him in the eye and said that he’d be happy to, if Thomas provided an alternative solution. And he hadn’t had one.

He’d made one last attempt, while things were being _simplified_ around them, to point out to Peter that this meant something, it wasn’t – well, it _was_ ceremonial, obviously, under the circumstances, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real _–_ and Peter had told him that he knew, he understood how important promises and oaths were, in the world of magic. And that wasn’t what Thomas had meant to say at all. Well, it was, but it was also that it would mean something to him, something personal. He wasn’t in the habit of making promises he didn’t mean to keep.

Peter had cut him off and he hadn’t found the words, and by the time he’d thought to find them again it was much, much too late.

Then they both spent the next few weeks – months, really, as various more distant acquaintances and colleagues got wind of the whole thing – determinedly minimizing the importance of their marriage to anyone who asked, because of course the entire thing was _wildly_ inappropriate, as Alexander Seawoll was never, ever going to let him forget. Thomas cravenly avoided Belgravia nick for the next year, unless the job absolutely required it, rationalizing that Alexander appeared to have decided Peter was not at all to blame. Peter’s muttering about some sort of betting pool among the officers there, on the outcome of their relationship, hadn’t helped. Neither had Abdul, who had been profoundly unsympathetic about the entire thing.

“Oh, come on, Thomas,” he’d said. “You could’ve done a lot worse, if you had to get hitched to someone.”

“I can’t disagree,” Thomas had said, “but it’s still an unfortunate situation at best.”

“He thinks the world of you, and you’re passing fond of him yourself.”

“Yes, but –”

“Although if he’s got no eye for men, I can see how that’d be difficult,” Abdul had allowed. “But I’m thinking that’s not the case, with how red you’re going.”

Thomas needed better friends, or at least someone who didn’t think the entire thing was _funny_. If they’d chosen to continue certain things past the wedding night that was their own affair, and hardly the most objectionable fact of the whole business. At least Peter didn’t seem inclined to discuss the matter. In fact, Peter didn’t seem inclined to discuss anything about any of it, which was fine as far as Thomas was concerned; they needed some space to let the entire thing fade into the background a little.

But he couldn’t change the fact that it did mean something.

*

The first time Thomas realized he was well and truly sunk, afterwards, was when Peter and he had been out on a case, and stopped for lunch at a café. They’d stood to leave, gathering their coats, and the girl behind the counter had stopped to ask Peter how their meal had been. She’d been flirtatious, not overly so but her interest clear, and Peter had responded with good-humoured friendliness. The sort of thing where you recognized somebody’s unspoken interest and you found it a little flattering, even if neither they nor you were intending anything more.

Thomas finished putting on his coat and reached out to touch Peter’s elbow, get his attention, but it wasn’t necessary; Peter turned to look at him. “Oh, you ready?”

“We’d best be getting on,” Thomas said, and the girl glanced between him and Peter, and he saw the subtle shift of body language that said she’d read whatever there was to read. It took him a moment to identify the small, hot flush of emotion as satisfaction, or perhaps possessiveness would be a better word. Then he was surprised at himself, and then he remembered that he did have the right now, in some strange way; but he wasn’t sure he should let himself feel like that. He wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t – that Peter didn’t mean anything to him, because that was plainly rubbish, after the last few years. But he had determined that it would be best to not let this necessity weigh any more on them than it already did.

And yet it remained, that moment, the feeling that he was married to Peter, and he _meant_ it, and he wanted to – he wouldn’t take it back, unless it was necessary.

That maybe he wouldn’t want to, even if it _was_ necessary.

*

The second time was at the Court of the Thames, a little over a year after their wedding, when he’d watched Peter dance with Beverley Brook. They made a good-looking couple, and Peter seemed to be enjoying himself. That didn’t cause him any particular twinges, of jealousy or otherwise. They hadn’t discussed fidelity, or anything like that, him and Peter. It hadn’t seemed necessary, and then it had seemed like admitting too much, and now, this far in, he wouldn’t know how. In any case, Beverley and Peter had ended things amicably but still finally, and _genii locorum_ took oaths as seriously as wizards, for the same reasons. If she wanted any part of Peter, she’d negotiate for it; if Peter wanted any change to the current state of their – of their marriage, he’d negotiate that, too. But Thomas didn’t find that a likely possibility, for some reason. He couldn’t say why.

His attention was drawn away from them by a friendly greeting, a man he’d seen once or twice at these things. After the first year Tyburn and Oxley had gotten back Peter’s father and his band, more than once, and other jazz groups other times, and it attracted enthusiasts of the genre. David – Thomas didn’t remember his last name, only remembered the first for the obvious reason – was one of those, not somebody who was part of the demi-monde, or at least not to Thomas’ knowledge.

They exchanged some pleasantries about the music, and Thomas wouldn’t have thought anything of it in particular until he noticed David glancing at his wedding ring, noticing it.

“Have you gotten – ah,” David said, apparently torn between asking the question and admitting he’d been paying attention.

“You can’t have been here last year,” said Thomas. “We –”

He broke off, his attention caught by Beverley and Peter coming over.

“Here, Thomas, you can have him back,” said Beverley, wiping a hand across her forehead. Thomas wasn’t sure when they’d graduated to first-name terms, but he had a suspicion. “I need a breather.”

“Me too,” said Peter, his eyes bright and his breath still coming fast; he looked happy, and Thomas had the absurd urge to kiss him, then and there. Then Peter slipped an arm around his waist, casually, and said “Unless you want a turn,” and Thomas didn’t really, but the offer made him smile.

“Maybe later,” he found himself saying.

“Don’t let him wear you out,” Beverley said, with what was almost a smirk, before she moved off.

“Well, I think I’m going to go find a drink,” said David. Thomas caught the flicker of his eyes to Peter’s left hand. “Nice to chat.”

“Yes,” said Thomas. Peter and David nodded to each other as well, but the arm Peter had put around Thomas’s waist – even though it didn’t move – suddenly felt somehow possessive. That was much less startling than the fact that Thomas liked it.

“He was chatting you up,” said Peter. He sounded amused, more than anything else.

“Well, maybe,” Thomas had to admit.  

Peter seemed to be holding back a smirk. “Tough luck for him, then.”

“I’m glad you think so.” The urge to kiss Peter hadn’t gone away; if anything, it had gotten stronger. “How much of a breather do you think you’ll need?”

“Are you serious?” Peter blinked. “I didn’t think you…”

Thomas wondered if the end of that sentence was _thought dancing in public was compatible with your dignity_ , or _would want to dance with me_ , or maybe _knew how to dance_. The last was probably not unreasonable, given the change in styles, but they’d figure something out. Besides, Peter was always going on about _being seen to be part of the community_ ; Thomas couldn’t think of many things that would do better, for that. It practically counted as a job requirement, viewed in that light. 

Unless Peter hadn’t meant it, of course.

“If you don’t want –” he started to say at the same time as Peter was saying “But if you do, then now –”

They stopped, and looked at each other. It was a quiet moment between songs, as much as you got quiet moments in this sort of crowd. Peter’s arm was still around his waist. Thomas was conscious, all of a sudden, of how much he wanted to be here, right now, and nowhere else.

The music started up again.

“Come on, then,” said Peter, and drew him out onto the dance floor. “Now I think about it, we never did this last year, did we? So we’ve got to, now.”

This time last year, they’d been married for two weeks, still terribly uncertain of almost everything except that fact – the paperwork hadn’t even been filed – and the Court of the Thames had turned into something of a belated party. Thomas had had to face Peter’s parents for the first time, after. It had gone by in a haze, in not quite the same way battles did, except with friendlier faces and more laughter. There’d been a point in the evening when Thomas had looked over and thought, _that’s my husband_ , and it had felt more foreign than Greek or Arabic ever had.

They hadn’t danced – not with each other and, by unspoken agreement, not with anybody else.

“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “I’d say it’s practically a requirement, now.”

Peter smiled. Thomas put his left hand on Peter’s shoulder and thought, _this is my husband._

He didn’t know when that had sounded to start right.

*

The third time was only a month or two after that, when Peter had gone off to deal with what should have been quite a simple matter, checking out a possibly enchanted or cursed set of candlesticks (really, candlesticks, of _all_ the things), and Thomas had been surprised when he hadn’t been back in time for dinner. Then he’d been mildly alarmed when Peter didn’t answer his phone, and then he’d gotten a call to say Peter was in UCH for smoke inhalation and _possible head injury_ , and he’d gotten there very fast indeed. There hadn’t been anything for him to clear up on the police end of things, no question of a crime yet, and apparently the site was still smouldering, Frank Caffrey firm that even Thomas shouldn’t try and go in just yet. Everybody, he was told, had been evacuated.

It was very late by then, getting towards the end of the second shift, and a nurse, a small Chinese woman with Liverpool strong in her voice, intercepted him as he headed for the room Peter was in.

“I’m DCI Thomas Nightingale, I’m here to speak with Peter Grant,” Thomas said.

He reached for his warrant card, but the nurse said firmly “Visiting hours are over, unless it’s a real emergency.” She looked like she might stand in the way even if he said he was there to make an arrest. Medical staff got that way, sometimes. She must be new; he and Peter had both been in and out of UCH enough over the years, not always as patients, to be recognised by many of the regular staff.

Thomas meant to explain that Peter was his sergeant and he needed to debrief him, no matter the hour, but instead he found himself saying “No, I meant - I’m his next of kin,” the words emerging like a revelation. “We’re married.”

“Oh!” said the nurse. “Oh, you’re the husband, that’s all right, then. You should’ve just said.”

Peter was awake when he got in there, although not very alert, Thomas rather thought; the way he smiled when he saw Thomas, open and nothing held back, said that.

“I know,” was the first thing he said. “Set something on fire, again. Wasn't expecting that when I went in there. Nobody was reporting spontaneous combustion, just some sort of haunting. I got everybody out, though.”

“I’m not here about that,” Thomas said, and took the seat beside the bed. In actual fact it had been bad luck more than anything else, from what he knew so far; Thomas wouldn’t have expected a fire, either. It took more magic than you usually got with enchanted objects. Knowing Peter, if he’d taken a risk it had been a calculated one, and the odds hadn’t been on his side. In any case, technically he didn’t get to decide if Peter had or hadn’t done it wrong – that sort of thing, for Peter, went up the chain to the Commander in charge of Specialist Crime Investigations now, at least if it didn’t involve magic directly. An awkward workaround, but it made the Commissioner and DPS slightly happier about the whole irregular situation. “Just to…just to check.”

“Oh,” Peter said, and rubbed his thumb across Thomas’s knuckles, where Thomas had taken his hand without really thinking about it.

Thomas held on, and thought about kissing him, and couldn’t quite bring himself to it. It wasn’t really something they did, not – not like that.  

But he held on all the same. _You’re the husband, that’s all right, then._

“Still wish I’d manage to save them as well as getting everybody out,” Peter said. “The candlesticks. Now they’re  buried under a pile of rubble _and_ the building’s condemned. I don’t like not knowing exactly how it worked. The same thing might happen again.”

“What are the odds you’re going to want to go back and dig through the ashes as soon as you wake up tomorrow?” Thomas asked, trying not to sound _too_ disapproving of this prospect. It would have to be done at some point, to be thorough.  

“Only if I want a divorce, I think,” Peter said, and Thomas laughed before he realized that apparently that was something they could joke about.

“That’s, er,” he found himself saying. “You’d have to try harder than that.”

“I’d _hope_ so.” Peter sounded quite genuinely indignant, and then caught himself. “Right. I – right.”

“Right,” Thomas echoed him. “Well.”

He could have added, _remember why we got married in the first place_ , it had hardly been for their own personal satisfaction, but that would have been as good as a lie. It wasn’t what he’d meant.

“So would you,” Peter said after a moment. “So’s you know.”

“Well,” said Thomas, feeling a sort of relief he hadn’t known he was waiting to feel. “I should hope so, too.”

*

The last time was the following winter, when Thomas found Peter showing the photos Beverley Brook had taken at their wedding to Molly. He’d almost managed to forget that there _was_ photographic evidence of their wedding, despite having talked to Peter about it after his run-in with Lesley.

He’d actually come to tell Peter that the house in Hampshire had sold, finally, but he lost that train of thought when he saw what was on the computer screen.

“Did you finally get those from Beverley?” he asked, coming up behind the pair of them at the computer and resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “She just gave me the whole folder, so I haven’t sorted through them. Some of them are a bit blurry, but there’s one or two that aren’t terrible.”

The one he had on the screen met that criterion, Thomas supposed; at least, they looked like themselves, and so did everybody else in the picture, and it wasn’t blurred or out of focus.

Molly smiled, and patted him on the arm. Thomas wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that.

“Lesley was right, though,” Peter said once Molly had gone, her interest apparently satisfied. “We do look a bit like somebody hit us both over the head.”

“I’ve seen worse,” said Thomas, taking the spare chair.

Looking back from the better part of two years’ remove, it was almost like something that happened to somebody else. He remembered it, remembered arguing with Peter, remembered being swept along inexorably into something he’d never thought of, but he didn’t remember what he’d felt the way he must have felt it. He didn’t remember _not_ wanting to be married to Peter. He didn’t remember it not being a simple fact of life, easy as breathing.

Or, no, that wasn’t true. He could remember something. Not the wedding night, when Peter had kissed him like it was something he’d been waiting a while to do. But some time in that first couple of weeks, when it was still awkward and new and something neither of them wanted to look at directly, their energies all bent on putting it behind them. His interview with the Commissioner was still fresh in his mind, and doubtless the same for Peter.

They’d been on the couch in the coach house, and Peter’s hand had brushed his leg, as he gestured while explaining something. Thomas had grabbed it, to avoid further incident, and thought about – and then he’d experienced an urgent wave of doubt, like cold water. He might want to, but that was the whole point of this being a bad idea, wasn’t it, that Peter might not feel _able_ to say no, and –

“What’s wrong?” said Peter. Thomas refocused on his face and saw that he was frowning, worried. He’d closed his hand around Thomas’s, was holding it. “You look like you just had a terrible thought.”

“I,” said Thomas, and the solution was obvious, really. “Can I -”

“Oh,” said Peter, and moved his leg, where it was resting against Thomas’s, like he was testing something, curling a socked toe around Thomas’s ankle. “Oh. You can.”

“You’re not going to wait for the rest of the question?”

Peter’s lips curved up, slowly, the sort of smile he got when he was savouring a victory. “I said, you can.”

That was good enough for Thomas, and he’d climbed all the way onto Peter, practically in his lap, before he’d realised _why_ Peter had had that particular smile. “I’m sorry. _May_ I?”

“I was _so_ close,” Peter had groaned. “I was going to hold that over you for -”

Thomas had kissed him, which hadn’t stopped Peter laughing into it. Thomas had nipped at his lower lip in retaliation, which had made Peter stop laughing and start rearranging Thomas’s position to their mutual satisfaction. This had been something Thomas was happy to assist in, and then he hadn’t worried about it anymore until they’d, as Peter might put it, tested the structural integrity of the couch.

“I know how to use words of one syllable, you know,” Peter had said, apropos of nothing, while they were doing their best to clean up. Thomas hadn’t sacrificed a handkerchief to this in – depressingly, decades. And now three in the last month.

“I know,” Thomas had replied, a little wryly, because it wasn’t like Peter ever hesitated to say what he thought in any other context.

“And I’m pretty sure you do, too,” Peter had gone on. “So _trust_ me.”

Thomas had paused in buttoning up to look at him. That was the opposite of what the question was supposed to be; it was supposed to be about whether Peter trusted _him_ , whether he had any sort of free choice in this. Not that Thomas had really believed Peter didn’t, or he wouldn’t be here at all. But it was Thomas’s responsibility to worry about it.

Or, no, Peter’s question was the right one after all, wasn’t it? They were together in this, or they couldn’t do it at all. They'd have to truly let it be ceremonial, take off the rings they hadn’t stopped wearing, relegate it to a footnote.

Even then he’d known that was never going to happen. They’d crossed some sort of personal Rubicon and never noticed.  

“Of course,” he had said. Peter had looked a little wild-eyed at that, of all the things to be surprised by.

In the present, staring at his own nervous face on the computer screen and trying to ignore the smug line of Tyburn’s mouth, at the very edge of the picture, he asked Peter, “Are you going to show any of these to your parents? I’m sure they’d like them.”

“Mum’s already seen them,” said Peter, with some mild despair. “ _Ages_ ago. I told Beverley off about that but she just laughed at me and said it was _my_ fault for not asking about them earlier.”

“Without any intention of criticising…” said Thomas. “It might have been polite to ask first?”

“I don’t know about your family,” said Peter, “but in mine weddings aren’t really _for_ you, they’re for other people. In case you don’t remember my Mum’s lecture on that point, when she found out. Your job is just to show up and not faint or throw up or run away. Least, not where anybody can see or where you can’t be brought back from. And in that line of reasoning, the photos aren’t really for us, either. Or not _just_ us.”

“In that case ours was a smashing success,” Thomas said. “What’s supposed to be the enticement to get married in the first place, then? Aside from the Jag, in your case.”

“I can’t believe you’re still on two years later about a joke I made to _make you feel better_ ,” Peter said. “And the traditional incentive is being shamed by your mother and anybody else who feels like it at every family gathering until you get on with it.”  

“Oh, well. That hasn’t changed much.”

“Like anybody has ever shamed _you_ into _anything_ ,” said Peter with a snort, which was a gross underestimation of, at the very least, himself. “And getting to _be_ married. That’s the bit that’s for…the people having the wedding. Afterwards, they get to be married. To each other. The wedding’s just the window-dressing.” 

Thomas contemplated this, in context. “The bit that’s for us, you mean.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “That’s the bit that’s for us.”

“I like knowing…” Thomas found he wasn’t sure how to phrase the rest of that sentence without it sounding more proprietary than he meant it to. “I like knowing you’re married to me.”

“I know,” Peter said, smiling now, taking Thomas’s left hand and squeezing it. After two years or near enough the pressure of his ring normally went unnoticed, but he felt it then, the same way he remembered feeling it on the day. There was a reciprocal possessiveness in the way Peter spoke, but a joy, as well. Joy in something that you could give and receive, not take. A thing that wouldn’t mean anything if it wasn’t chosen.  

And it was possible to recognise, nearly two years after the fact, looking at this digital record of their startled faces, of the way they’d clutched at each other’s hands, that this – being married – was, in fact, a thing for them. A thing they’d both chosen. Not, if it had ever really been, ceremonial at all.

Peter kissed him, still smiling a little. Thomas leaned into it, remembering when that had seemed beyond them, and marvelled privately that they’d gotten here at all, a place where looking at those pictures made Peter want to kiss him and Thomas want to be kissed.  

“Do you know,” Thomas said, “I was once told I wasn’t cut out for married life?”

“Was that some sort of Edwardian euphemism?” Peter asked, clearly amused.

“We were getting on for the end of George V’s reign by then, so not really.”

“Still a euphemism, though.”

“Not _quite_ as much as you’re thinking.”

“The past is another country.” Peter’s mouth twitched; he liked surprising Thomas occasionally with the kind of quote Thomas recognised the origin of, as opposed to all his other quotes, which Thomas only sometimes recognised _as_ quotes.

“I had noticed,” Thomas said.

“Still, all things considered,” said his husband, “including the Marriage Act of 2013 –”

Thomas eyed him, but Peter just grinned and kept going. “– all things considered, I’d have to disagree.”

“Well,” said Thomas, glancing at the screen, then down at their still-joined hands. “That was the conclusion I’d come to.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Have and Hold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11459100) by [knight_tracer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer)




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